Bagheera kiplingii: how does the world's only herbivorous spider live? (5 photos)

An unusual species of acacia grows in Central America. This acacia has formed an alliance with local ants. The plant allows the insects to live inside its hollow stems, and also feeds them with special protein growths on the leaves.





By the way, a very beautiful representative of spiders!

In return, the acacia receives aggressive protection from the ants from anything that dares to touch the tree.



We're talking about these white grains on the tips of the leaves.

At some point, the spiders realized that the tree produces nutritious protein in large quantities and began to move en masse to these acacias. Now there's no need to hunt! You can walk on the acacia and calmly eat nutritious protein things. So our heroes became 90% herbivorous.





I got tired of the war and decided to just eat tasty berries...

But it wasn't just ants! Ants and spiders wage a constant, fierce war for the right to own such a valuable tree. Spiders often settle in large colonies and exhibit traits of collective behavior. Females guard their clutches together from ant attacks. And the ants, in turn, try their best to drive the spiders out of their territory.



I just came to eat. In someone else's house.

This is how the eternal bloody war is going on in the microworld, which we did not even suspect...



Ants on an acacia are looking for a criminal who dared to leave a web on their favorite tree.